Miller Theatre Features Julio Estrada as Part of Composer Portraits Series, 5/16

Born in Mexico City, the child of Spanish refugees, Julio Estrada (b. 1943) is a product of cultural crossroads.

Influenced in equal part by Xenakis's abstract theories and Mexican music history, by his studies of mathematics and of acoustics, Estrada has published widely and been the recipient of numerous awards, including the internationally respected French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Miller Theatre closes out its 2012-13 season with this kaleidoscopic Portrait, culminating with the world premiere of a new commission.

Estrada was born in Mexico City, following the 1941 exile of his family from Spain. A composer, theoretician, historian, pedagogue, and interpreter, he began his musical studies in Mexico (1953-65), where he studied composition with Julián Orbón. In Paris (1965-69) he studied with Nadia Boulanger, Messiaen, and attended courses and lectures of Xenakis. In Germany he studied with Stockhausen (1968) and with Ligeti (1972). He earned a Ph.D. in Musicology at Strasbourg University (1990-1994). In 1974 he became researcher in music at the Instituto de Estéticas, IIE/UNAM, where he was appointed as the Chair of a project on Mexican Music History and Head of MúSIIC, Música, Sistema Interactivo de Investigación y Composición, a musical system designed by himself. He is the first music scholar to be honored as a member of the Science Academy of Mexico and by the Mexican Education Ministery as National Researcher (since 1984).

He created a Composition Seminar at UNAM, where he has been teaching Compositional Theory and Philosophy of Composition. In addition, he has written about a hundred articles based on his research, translated into English, French, German, Italian and Japanese. Estrada is the General Editor of the most complete publication on Mexican music history, La Música de México [Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, IIE/UNAM, México 1984, ca. 2000 p.]. He has postulated a General Theory of Intervallic Classes, applicable to macro- and micro-intervallic scales of duration and of pitch. In the field of the continuum, Estrada has developed new methods of multidimensional graphic description of several parameters of sound or rhythm. The French Ministry of Culture decorated him with the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1981, 1986).

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